The Drinking Age Should Be Lowered

2320 words - 9 pages

There are numerous problems involving alcohol in the world today, including alcoholism, drunk driving, and alcohol poisoning leading to death. Many of these problems involve minors and are linked to drinking underage. The legal drinking age in many states is twenty-one years old. The purpose of this law is to keep minors out of danger: away from drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and injuring the brain before it is fully developed. The government supports the belief that people are not ready or responsible enough for alcohol until this age. However, various professors and researchers are discovering ways to disprove this belief. These people think that reducing the drinking age to eighteen would influence our country in a positive way. Not only do minors support this idea, but there are numerous people and organizations that support the idea of lowering the drinking age as well. The current drinking law is counterproductive in our society because it’s not effective in eliminating underage drinking, and leads to unsafe situations such as drunk driving and alcohol poison instigated deaths. This problem could be solved by lowering the minimum drinking age to eighteen, with a drinking license.
“Either we are a nation of lawbreakers, or this is a bad law”, says John McCardell, author for the Greenhaven Press (McCardell, 2012). What McCardell is referring to is the law barring the consumption of alcohol in individuals under the age of twenty-one in the United States. John McCardell is the former president of Middlebury College, and he is also the founder of the Choose Responsibly group (Baldouf, 2007). This group is a nonprofit organization that travels around the country sharing McCardell’s proposal about the drinking age. He has spent a considerable amount of time studying how alcohol is abused in college students (Baldouf, 2007). McCardell suggests it is time to rethink the drinking age in the United States (McCardell, 2012). First of all, why are eighteen year olds considered minors only when it comes to drinking? After all, they are legally permitted to drive, get married, smoke cigarettes, and even to join the army. If they can make the choice to do these things, are they not capable of making the choice to drink?
The drinking age in America has changed multiple times throughout our history. In fact, there were no such things as mandates on drinking until 1851, when Maine passed the law on prohibition. Soon after, many other states followed in their footsteps. Congress first pressed the issue on the whole country in 1917, and the law was ratified two years later. In 1920, the government created the 18th Amendment, which officially banned everyone from the production, distribution, and consumption of alcohol. Throughout this entire time period, the demand for alcohol continued to thrive, leading to flourishing acts of bootlegging (Rotunda, 2004). It took years for the government to give up on this law, but it did finally...

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social event. Most of these events you're not required to be 21. In fact in most of them you have to be 18. So why not lower the drinking age to 18? It would diminish the amount of people drinking in unsafe places in fear of the law. It would reduce the amount of people that die neglecting medical attention in fear of a police investigation. It would allow people to drink in supervised environments such as bars and clubs. In The United States of

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they are? The drinking age needs to be lowered to 18 to show the world we are socially progressive. One possible solution I would voice to lawmakers is to lower the buying age of beer and wine to 18 and spirits to 19. Lawmakers need to lower the drinking age to end the debate we’ve had over the last few decades.
Works Cited
"15 Reasons Why Drinking Age Should Be 18." Cognac.com. N.p., 01 Jan. 2013. Web. 08 Feb. 2014.
"Alcohol and Public Health

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dozen shots of booze and at Pennsylvania University a student was found clinging to life on her 21st birthday, her blood-alcohol level nearly seven times the intoxication limit. Many people feel that the drinking age should be lowered to accommodate the young adult college students who drink so heavily. The argument is always, "If I'm old enough to enlist in the military, go, fight and die for my country...I should be old enough to buy a beer

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Who first determined the legal age for drinking alcohol, and why is twenty-one the significant number? Interesting questions one may ask one-self. Although there are many reasons the drinking age should be lowered. However, only three will be discussed. Three reasons why eighteen should be the legal age to drink alcohol, because one can vote and serve in the military at that age, not all of the states in the US and other countries have specified

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too high. They believe that if they are eligible to vote, they may be sent to war, and possibly die for their country at the age of eighteen; then they should be able to consume alcohol. What some of these teens don't know is that the drinking age was eighteen at one time in some states. However, the United States government saw problems with youth drinking and they decided to raise the legal drinking age to twenty-one. As an additional incentive

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Should the legal drinking age be lowered? Fifty percent of the American would say No, and the other fifty percent would say Yes. Why not? because underage drinking is a public health problem that can lead to severe physical, mental, educational and legal consequences for college students engaging in activities. Drinking at college has become a ritual that students often see as part of their higher education experience. Many